Key West, Florida

Tue, Dec 5th, 2017 – Drive to Key West – Stay Overnight and back to Ft. Lauderdale on December 6th

We woke up early and fulfilled Adam’s life-long dream of having breakfast at Dunkin Donuts (just kidding – we’d been to Dunkin Donuts before – he just likes their coffee and is looking forward to when we have Dunkin Donuts in Southern California) and then headed out on the turnpike towards Key West.

We saw many sights along the way .. unfortunatley – many of these sites were sad (overturned cars, damaged/destroyed houses, damaged boats ) due to Hurricane Irma earlier this year.

But we also saw some interesting and cool things like a giant lobster (Betsy) and cool eclectic gift shops.

Betsy the Giant Lobster

Adam with Betsy

Adam and his pirate friend

More of the “Rain Barrel” shops – behind the storefront were more shops in an interesting little village atmosphere.

People had fun and interesting mailboxes!

One of the many interesting homes we saw along the way

Another cute mailbox!

Beautiful water colors along the way

After an educational and interesting drive we arrived in key west and checked into the Pier House hotel. We were happy to learn that the hotel offered a free shuttle up and down the main street. We checked out the room and it was beautiful. Then we walked over to Mallory Square where we did something kind of funny. While Adam is working – in his office he likes to have live web-cams showing various places around the globe. One of his favorites is of Mallory Square where the cruise ships dock. We pre-arranged a place where we would stand, and asked Adam’s father to photograph us when we got there.

Then we took the shuttle to the southernmost point of the continental us and we meandered up and to the street and looked in the shops.

Southermonst point in the Continental USA

We went back to Mallory square and watched the street performers until sundown. Sundown is an interesting experience because people gather to watch the sun set – and then applaud! We overheard someone shout “Nice job earth!”

Then we asked for recommendations for dinner and we were pointed to a restaurant not far away and had dinner on the waterfront and then we strolled around some more in the shops and businesses and we went back to our room. We were tired from such little sleep so we were about to go bed Adam noticed an email from Princess that our cruise would be delayed by 1 day because of delays getting out of dry dock. So a quick phone call to our travel agent (thanks again, Cheryl!) secured us another night hotel in Ft. Lauderdale before they all filled up. We still needed to try to get our internal clocks to Eastern time so we turned in a bit early.

The next morning, we were a little less rushed than expected because we didn’t have to rush back to Ft. Lauderdale to cath the ship so we enjoyed a leisurely drive back through the keys – and even took a little time to poke around in a shopt or two. Once back on the ‘mainland,’ we drove to the hotel (the Hilton Ft. Lauderdale Beach Resort) and dropped off our luggage, turned in the car, and then went back to the hotel. We enjoyed the facilities – Susan went swimming and we sat look at the beach from our hotel sipping on some cocktails.

Then we went back to the room and fulfilled Susan’s life long dream of Room Service and it was very expensive and very small portions. While the room service food was a big disappointment, the room was very nice, and it was a comfortable and refreshing night.